Happy New Year!

After Christmas it was so great to have my mom come into town to celebrate the New Year with us.  We continued our tradition of going to Maggianos which is a hit with everyone.

I bought some sparkling cranberry cider and we all loved it!  Happy New Year to you and we wish everyone a happy and healthy 2015!  Cheers!

Army Men

Whose idea was it to get Andrew 202 army men?  Not mine but he has enjoyed them.

Bye to Nana and Papa

We were very thankful to have Nana and Papa in town but it's always sad to see them go home.  Thanks for visiting us!

Christmas Day

Looks like Santa delivered a sack full of toys and a green bike for Andrew and a pink scooter for Julia.  What lucky kids!

So excited to open Christmas presents.

Santa filled our stockings too.

Excited to head downstairs to see what Santa brought them but first one photo please.

Excited about her new scooter that of course was pink.

Andrew on his new bike which just happened to be green...his favorite color.

Digging through the sack to see what else Santa delivered this year.

Andrew got cabbie from the movie Planes Fire and Rescue.

A Jake game from Nana and Papa.

Jake Legos...one of our favorite toys!

Julia is helping Daddy open his new sneakers.  We weren't sure he would like the new converse but he loved them which was great because his old pair was quite beat up and needed to be retired.  Julia is already wearing her new Frozen nightgown from Nana and Papa.

Julia is all smiles about her new IPAD mini with a pink case to protect it.

Daddy is all excited about going to a Syracuse Basketball game with Andrew.  I'm so excited for them...they're going to have a blast!

Papa and Julia putting together Julia's lego house.

Before Griffin left for the North Pole he left us a bunch more Hershey kisses.  We were all excited about the treats!

One of Andrew's presents was Thomas' old IPOD touch since we both got Iphones. Thomas put a few games on it along with a few shows and Andrew loves it.

There are many reasons we love about living in the south and another one to add to our list is being able to test out our new bikes and scooters on Christmas Day.  Julia and Andrew are thrilled about their new rides.

Look at my boy go!  Is he really old enough to be riding a bike?  Santa did well by finding this bike for Andrew...he loves it.

Daddy and Andrew on their way back from a bike ride down the street.

Enjoying the great weather!

Christmas Day nap for Andrew!

Julia never takes a nap anymore but someone woke up at 4am because she was so excited and finally fell back asleep at 6am in our bed and then up at 6:30am when she heard Andrew walk into our room.  She was just too excited to sleep so a nap was definitely in order for today.

Santa brought Julia the Loominator and Papa was the one who started showing Julia how to make a bracelet.

Since Andrew was Jake for Halloween we thought he might like the Jake Legos and he sure did. We had such a great Christmas and it's always nice being together and enjoying each others company.  We hope your Christmas was as good as ours!

Christmas Eve

Just four days before Nana and Papa came into town for Christmas both Julia and Andrew came down with the flu but luckily it wasn't bad and they were feeling better by the time they arrived.  Obviously they were excited to see them!

Julia always gets so excited about Christmas each year...it really makes the holiday so much fun!  She just can't wait for the day to open presents and she even has fun looking through our family presents to see which one belongs to who.

Tradition continues that after church you get to open one gift.  We actually tried going to two different masses but they were filled up and we never got to go to Christmas Eve mass.  Both masses reached capacity and they wouldn't let anybody else in the church.

Definitely Julia's fake smile because she just wanted to get the picture over with so she could open her gift.

So excited about the fishing pole to use in the bathtub.

Andrew opening his transformer.

Nana and Papa with the kids and their first gift of Christmas.

Love my family!

Ready to sprinkle our reindeer food on the lawn.

We wanted to be sure Santa could easily find our house.  Mission complete!  Inside to get ready for bed so Santa can deliver his gifts!

Our elf Griffin

We always enjoy when Griffin comes to visit us and the excitement soars high each morning as the hunt is on to find out what Griffin has done!

Sometimes he even left a few little treats.

Griffin likes to swing just like Julia!

Sometimes Griffin put a cramp in our lifestyle.  No water for the day from the fridge.

Elves like to play with toys too and not just make them.

He's so funny!

I guess Griffin likes chocolate too!

Last year Griffin did the Kissing Booth and he did it again this year.  We were all so excited to get some kisses from Griffin!  We'll miss having him around but look forward to him visiting us next year.  

Syracuse Basketball

Thomas has always been a Syracuse basketball fan and now it looks like Andrew is becoming a fan too!  Looking forward to them going to a Syracuse game together real soon!

Julia's Christmas Party

There were tons of kids out sick in Julia's class the last week of school and I can't believe she didn't miss any days.  Unfortunately on Friday night both her and Andrew started feeling bad and ended up with the flu.  Glad we got the flu shot so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  One of the things that annoyed me the most is on Monday when I was volunteering a kid said he had a fever and his mom gave him medicine and he was at school...ugh!  If your child is sick please keep them home!  Anyways, I loved being able to go to her Christmas party with her but of course I forgot to have someone take a photo of the two of us.  Oh well, next time!  Here she is as happy as can be after she just finished making an ornament.

Next up was making a Christmas tree.

Love her facial expression!

Then she played an Olaf game and after that she came to my center and made a snowman but I didn't even get a photo of that either.  We were having lots of fun so I missed some photo opportunities.

The last center she went to was wrapping up a friend with green streamers so she looked like a tree.  I'm so thankful Thomas was able to take Andrew so I could go in and enjoy time with Julia and her class at the party.